[AusNOG] Re: [Oz-ISP] FW: Screwed Again: House RejectsNet Neutrality

Stephen Baxter Stephen.Baxter at staff.pipenetworks.com
Fri Jun 9 21:17:55 EST 2006


Maybe I have this all wrong but the NN debate to me seems to be more
about the data path in the core and closer to the access edge rather
than specific interconnection at the border (peering). 

The yanks have themselves in a real bind - they offer $14.95 (and as low
as $9.99 or free on some plans) all you can eat DSL to their subscribers
and now it looks like that data rates are about to go through the roof
with video on demand and other applications. They do have a real scaling
issue in their cores if these new applications start to get used - their
issue I think in Australia would be seen as a Trades Practices one. If
their networks are not dimensioned for everybody to get full data speeds
for like 25% of the month (let alone 50% of the month) then they should
have placed reasonable commercial expectations into the market.

What is easier is to piss off the content companies (who are doing far
better in terms of perception, market cap and growth) rather than piss
off their own direct customers who are drunk with choice in the access
space. The people pushing the concept of a 2 tier Internet see this as a
way to not only potentially get revenue to pay for the much needed
expansion to carry this traffic but also as a check to these upstart
content players.

I do not agree with 2 tier Internet but what do you do if all of a
sudden your core starts melting because 1000 subscribers at an exchange
(or a regional town that may have many exchanges) just started watching
HDTV versions of Battlestar Galactica ?

This is a local issue as well but we have commercial mechanisms to deal
with it - specifically data capping, rate shaping and data charges in
some combination.

Cheers,

SB


> I have to agree with Skeeve.
> 
> IMHO it will only affect 'content companies' in the US. 
> Comapnies such as EBay, Google, Yahoo have managed to strike 
> up peering relationships with some large Tier 1's in the US. 
> Few of them, if any, have been able to do the same here in Australia.
> 
> Peering with any of the Tier 1's in Australia has been (to 
> put it mildly) difficult. There's no 'net neutrality' problem 
> if the content companies can't peer with the Tier 1's. As you 
> can imagine, Google, Yahoo and EBay have a great deal of 
> influence and have managed over the years to setup some 
> pretty lucrative peering arrangements with some of the larger 
> Tier 1's in the US.
> 
> What is a concern is some of the comments made at Nanog this 
> week at the Peering BOF by Daniel Golding from Tier 1 
> Research. Given the disruption that's been occuring with the 
> US Tier 1's, there's been information presented that a 
> potential 'Tier 0' may be formed between Verizon (inc. MCI) 
> and AT&T (not too dissimilar with what occured between TCNZ 
> and Telstra Clear in NZ last year) and those two de-peering 
> themselves from the others. Although it's very 'out there' 
> the consequences are disturbing.
> 
> Here's a link to the Peering BOF at Nanog this week: 
> http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0606/norton.html
> 
> Cheers everyone.
> 
> Kind regards,
> John De La Fuente
> Fish Telecom Wollongong
> 
> Deus Ex Machina wrote: 
> 
> 	Skeeve Stevens [skeeve at skeeve.org] wrote:
> 	  
> 
> 		 
> 		Bugger.
> 		    
> 
> 	
> 	not bugger. thank god its been rejected. the last thing 
> you want is government regulating the
> 	internet.
> 	
> 	Vic
> 	
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